Feb 25 (Reuters) – Australian logistics software firm WiseTech Global said on Wednesday it would lay off about 2,000 people over the next two years as it adopts artificial intelligence across its software and internal operations.
The layoffs would affect around 29% of WiseTech’s global workforce across 40 countries, and could reduce some teams to half, starting with product and development, and customer service roles across the organisation.
Shares of the software firm jumped 10.7% in early trading to A$47.60 per share.
“Software development has experienced its most significant shift in decades,” Chief Executive Officer Zubin Appoo said, while announcing a marginal 2% increase in first-half underlying profit.
“The era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over.”
One of the divisions affected will be the recently acquired U.S. cloud computing firm, E2open, which may see a reduction of up to 50%.
Investors have shunned WiseTech stock since late 2024. Its shares are down 70% since hitting a record-high in November 2024, after founder and former CEO Richard White was accused of making payments to an alleged former lover, among others.
(Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Shinjini Ganguli)
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